“Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could…” --The Sound of Music
Thus far into her song, Parmenides would have been in total agreement with Maria. The principle of “ex nihilo nihil” is quite important to his argument about the perfection of the world. It is impossible that the world could be created from nothing, since, according to Parmenides, “what is not” cannot exist. From this premise, he argues that since there is nothing that can be called what-is-not the world cannot have any deficiencies, since deficiency would imply the existence of “what-is-not. While this argument is logical, the next step he takes is less tenable. He argues next that human experience is completely wrong; that the world is changeless, timeless, single, and ungenerated; and that, perhaps as a consequence of this, it is a perfect sphere, “equally balanced in every direction from the …show more content…
If the world had been created, there would have been something before the world; what would this be? It must have been what-is-not; but it has already been established that what-is-not does not and cannot exist. Further, how can anything come from what-is-not? Since what-is-not has no true existence, how could anything that does in fact have existence, i.e., the what-is, come from it? Further, it must be timeless. Even if the world is assumed always to have existed, there must be something that impels the world to change. What could this be? There is no reason for anything in the continuous fabric of the what-is to change. The world, he argues, “never was nor will be, since it is now, all together, one, continuous.” (KRS 296, p. 249) More strongly, he says that “if it came into being, it is not.” (KRS 296, p. 250) This must mean that if it came into being, it must somehow be made or comprised of what-is-not, an
Thus far into her song, Parmenides would have been in total agreement with Maria. The principle of “ex nihilo nihil” is quite important to his argument about the perfection of the world. It is impossible that the world could be created from nothing, since, according to Parmenides, “what is not” cannot exist. From this premise, he argues that since there is nothing that can be called what-is-not the world cannot have any deficiencies, since deficiency would imply the existence of “what-is-not. While this argument is logical, the next step he takes is less tenable. He argues next that human experience is completely wrong; that the world is changeless, timeless, single, and ungenerated; and that, perhaps as a consequence of this, it is a perfect sphere, “equally balanced in every direction from the …show more content…
If the world had been created, there would have been something before the world; what would this be? It must have been what-is-not; but it has already been established that what-is-not does not and cannot exist. Further, how can anything come from what-is-not? Since what-is-not has no true existence, how could anything that does in fact have existence, i.e., the what-is, come from it? Further, it must be timeless. Even if the world is assumed always to have existed, there must be something that impels the world to change. What could this be? There is no reason for anything in the continuous fabric of the what-is to change. The world, he argues, “never was nor will be, since it is now, all together, one, continuous.” (KRS 296, p. 249) More strongly, he says that “if it came into being, it is not.” (KRS 296, p. 250) This must mean that if it came into being, it must somehow be made or comprised of what-is-not, an